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Partners in the “Establishing Conditions for Experiential Education for Sustainable Development” project have invited representatives from leading education-related organisations and schools, headmasters and teachers from the region to visit the outdoor learning courses in Modraže and Dole and the Nature Development Centre in Poljčane. The visitors – who were invited to see the outdoor learning courses – were taken on a guided tour of the educational environments and ecoremediation systems and introduced to the established conditions to innovative outdoor exploratory learning.

The visitors learned that the Municipality of Poljčane is an example of how we should live in harmony with nature.

Video report

Video transcript

In the desire to familiarize the broader public with the outdoor learning courses in Modraže and Dole and with the Nature Development Centre Poljčane, partners in the “Establishing Conditions for Experiential Education for Sustainable Development” project decided to invite special guests to the above mentioned locations.

Prof. Ddr. Ana Vovk Korže, head of the Nature’s Classroom project:First we invited representatives of the leading educational organisations. These are the Ministry of Education, representatives of Slovenia’s Eco-Schools, representatives of centres for educational and optional activities as well as schools, headmasters and teachers from this region. The objective is to show them these outdoor courses which are waiting for outdoor education, considering that the young people strongly need this kind of experience.

At the course in Modraže visitors were shown field and laboratory gear for field exploration; they were also taken on a guided tour of the educational environments and ecoremediation systems and told about the established conditions for innovative outdoor exploratory teaching.

Staška Buser, School Centre Šentjur:This is the outdoor course that can help us apply all our knowledge about nature and husbandry. I’m referring to healthy food production from the viewpoint of water protection, as the visitors here can see in person how this knowledge can be applied to their smaller or larger eco farms. Young people can also come here to learn and gain new experience in nature.

At the permacultural learning course in Dole, where a yurt was recently constructed, the last days prior to the visit were used to carry out final tasks and build a greenhouse, arrange its interior and install the planned water element in front of the yurt.

Dane Katalinič, Eco-Schools for Kindergartens programme coordinator:This course features numerous processes, which are displayed so well that they could be used as textbook examples in pre-school education and all the way to university. In short, this course is a preparation for life, acquiring knowledge that you can take into your home environment and imitate it. If this happens, then we’re looking at a bright future. Not only that, I’d like to point out that the course is ahead of the time we live in.

At the end of the day visitors were also taken to the recently opened Nature Development Centre in Poljčane which acts as a centre for education on nature and environment. There they learned that the municipality of Poljčane is a model example of how to live in harmony with nature.

Stanislav Kovačič, Mayor of Poljčane:This is exactly what we imagined it to be. We’d like to continue with this work. We can boldly say that we have achieved a lot, but there is still much to do. In any case we would like to continue developing the vision of our municipality. We want to live in harmony with nature, to preserve nature and revitalize it in places where it was damaged or stunted and offer all of this to our visitors. All kinds of visitors, but mostly those coming here for educational tourism.

The outdoor educational courses in the municipality of Poljčane were also inspected by representatives of partners participating in the project, who were very excited about the results they saw.

Mateja Malek, RISO Institute for Development and Improvement of Infrastructure and the Social Environment:There are five partners participating in the project, in addition to the Faculty of Arts, these are Limnos, Energy Agency of Podravje, Development Agency Kozjansko and us, the RISO Institute. We are very thrilled about this cooperation. These kind of outdoor courses are being established all over Slovenia. Today we visited two in Modraže and this one here in Dole. Similar ones are being set up in Sveta Trojica, next to the lake Trojiško jezero, and in the municipality Miklavž na Dravskem polju, in the settlement of Dobrovce. We are really happy about this cooperation and we see that the project is progressing quite well.